


near you

by kadaransmuggler



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Confessions, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Vault Tec Fuckery, rated M for horror and vault tec fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 08:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15578223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: "Logan lets out a strangled sound in the back of his throat. All of that, and what do they get? Bottled fucking water.Knight glances at Logan, a wry smile on his face. “At least we got balloons,” he says, reaching out to tug on the string of one."OR,Courier Six explores a Vault with Major Knight.





	near you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Michael_Ackart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michael_Ackart/gifts).



The sun is setting over camp McCarran. Two soldiers stand at their post on the wall, guns held loosely in hand. They’re supposed to be watching for Fiends, but everything is quiet for now. Down below, a courier walks across the tarmac. He slows when he hears the voices floating down to him, looking up at the top of the walls through the fading sunlight. 

“Hey, Vasquez, you ever heard of Vault 4?” one of the soldiers asks. She’s shorter than her partner, a little fidgety, like the silence is making her uncomfortable. 

“No. Should I have?” the other one asks. She’s taller, more patient, like she could sit in the silence for the whole of their shift without being bothered. 

“It’s practically a legend,” the first soldier claims. There’s something overconfident in her voice, something that can almost be taken as a challenge.  

“Okay, okay. I’ll bite. What kind of legend, Ellis?” Vasquez asks. There’s amusement in her voice that can be heard even by the courier down below. Meanwhile, the courier seems as if he might move on. No need in staying for a story he wasn't meant to hear. 

“The kind with treasure, Vasquez! I can't believe you haven't heard of it. You aren't yanking my chain, are you?” Ellis asks. At the mention of treasure, the courier stops, his full attention on the conversation above him. 

“Why would I try to  _ yank your chain _ over this? Trust me, I don't want to listen to you tell me stories I already know,” Vasquez answers wryly. 

“Fine, fine. Anyway, this Vault is some big mystery. It’s hidden, or so everyone says,” she replies, slipping into the role of storyteller. Something in her voice suggests that, once upon a time, she would have liked to search for the hidden Vault herself. Now, the Vault is only a story she wants to tell to pass the time. 

“How can you hide the entrance to a Vault? They’re massive,” the other woman says. It is clear that she doesn't put much stock into the rumors of the Vault, either. 

“Hell if I know. I’d think a cave of some kind, but it’s supposed to be next to the Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters, and there ain’t no caves up there. It was supposed to be this collaboration between Vault-Tec and the company. Dunno what Vault-Tec would want with Sunset Sarsaparilla, but I only know what I’m told,” the first woman says. There’s a little bit of scorn in her voice- it is hard to imagine that nobody has found the Vault yet. 

“Well, what kind of treasure makes it noteworthy?” the first soldier asks. She seems like she’s enjoying poking holes in the old legend. 

“I don't know that, either. Maybe it’s a pile of caps. Or maybe there are piles of gold and silver bars, and priceless jewels. Or maybe it's a closet full of Sunset Sarsaparilla. All I know is that it’s a mystery nobody’s been able to solve,” she says. The conversation.changes then, to something lighthearted and teasing. 

Gears can practically be heard turning in the head of the courier below. It wasn't like he hadn't seen legends made flesh before. It would be a short journey, as well. A quick jaunt away from McCarran. And he knows exactly who he wants to join him. 

* * *

Logan bounds into Major Knight’s tent, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He’s already got bags packed with any provisions they may need. They’re light- partly due to the shortness of the trip, and partly so there would be plenty of room to carry back any treasure they might find.  

“Excited about something?” Knight asks, with a grin on his face as he takes in the boy in front of him. Logan’s excitement is always infectious. Or maybe he’s just got Knight wrapped around his finger. 

“Wanna go on an adventure?” Logan asks. Knight doesn't think he has it in him to say no. 

“What kind of adventure?” he asks, instead, still amused by the obvious show of excitement. 

“The kind where we may or may not find some kick-ass treasure,” he replies. 

They set out from McCarran before dawn the next morning. 

* * *

They reach the Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters without any issues. The only problem from there is finding the Vault- it has to be hiding somewhere in plain sight, or they were wrong about the location. Or maybe the Vault never existed at all.

Logan doesn't want to think about those possibilities. So while they hunt for glints of metal underneath the desert sand, he tells Knight about another treasure he’s been hunting. Maybe he only mentions it because the Sarsaparilla Headquarters is right next to them. Maybe he’s just trying to reassure himself that he’ll find treasure after all. 

Knight isn't as convinced. He’s going along because he wants to go with Logan, wants to spend time with him away from the walls of McCarran now that he's out of the Outpost, and because he’s curious. Curious about the old Vault, curious about it holds within. He doesn't know what to believe about the supposed treasure, if anything. 

“Listen, Logan, all I’m saying is it might turn out to be that the real treasure is the friends you made along the way,” Knight says, a grin on his face. Logan rolls his eyes in response. 

“Ha, ha. Very funny. We’ll see who’s laughing when I come back with enough treasure to make me rich,” Logan responds. 

“I’m sure that's what all the treasure hunters say, love,” he says, faux-sympathetic. His grin gets wider. 

Logan’s answer is cut off as the glint of metal beneath sand catches his eye. His brow furrows as his mouth twists into a concentrated frown, closing the distance until he’s kneeling at the edge of a metal structure hidden under the sand. 

Sure enough, it’s a Vault door. He’d bet a handful of caps that the elevator panel is in the shack nearby. 

“How are we going to clear all this off?” Knight wonders. Logan shrugs. 

“I don't know if we need to. The platform goes straight down,” he says. He stands back up, stretching, and heads towards the shack. He’s not looking forward into the long descent into the depths of the Vault, but he’s not worried about it. Knight will be with him, and these exit elevators were built to withstand the end of the world. 

By the time they step onto the platform, he’s convinced himself that everything will be just fine. 

* * *

The Vault is silent and empty. It’s.obvious from the moment they step off the elevator platform that nobody has been here for years. Already, Logan is uneasy. He tries to convince himself that the inhabitants had left the Vault, like those back home in 101 had wanted. Somehow, he gets the feeling that that isn’t the case, but he knows he’s missing something. There’s no sign of any fucked up experiment. His Vault had sustained the population for centuries, without much outside interference. So what had happened here?

He and Knight exchange looks, but not much else. Both of them have their hands on their guns- Logan with his plasma rifle (he remembered getting it from Harkness in Rivet City, but God if that didn't feel like a lifetime ago) and Knight with his service rifle. 

“We should split up. Stay on the same floor, of course, but we’ll cover more ground. The Overseer’s office should be somewhere nearby. It’ll probably have information about the place,” he says. He remembers old horror vids he had seen- splitting up was always the stupidest thing that happened in them. But this wasn't a vid, this was real, and Logan had enough experience exploring Vaults to know that splitting up really was one of the better options. 

“Sounds good. You take left, I take right?” Knight suggests, glancing around. As compact as the Vaults were, there sure was a lot of space. 

“Yeah. Holler if you find anything,” Logan replies. He doesn't expect to find trouble, not when the place is so overwhelmingly empty, but he can't shake his unease. 

* * *

Logan is the one who finds the terminal in the Overseer’s office. For a moment, it reminds him of Vault 101 and the mad dash to the surface. It had been easy to hack that terminal, all he’d had to do was guess the password. But this one? There was nothing he could guess. He had to hack it, properly, because his search hadn't turned up a password in any desk drawers or cabinets.

He doesn't call out to Knight until he unlocks the terminal, mostly because he wants to be sure he has something. With a cursory look at the files, though, he knows he does, so he calls out to the soldier as he starts reading through them. 

The Vault wasn't a control Vault, which surprisingly makes him feel marginally better. While 101 had been an experiment itself, the population had been well sustained. It only made the emptiness here all the more frightening. 

Some of the files are locked, his access restricted. He can only get a basic idea of what to expect down in the lower floors- separate populations, individual Overseers for each floor, perpetual darkness. The treasure is located on the bottom floor, behind a door that can only be opened with all four keys for the individual Overseer offices. 

He shares a look with Knight, a slow grin creeping across his face. “Should be easy enough,” he says. 

“I don’t know, Logan. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Besides, it doesn’t tell us what the treasure is. What if someone’s already gotten it?” Knight returns. The Vault feels  _ wrong _ , but even so he doesn’t regret agreeing to come. 

Logan shrugs. “Then it’ll be somewhere else in the Vault. The terminal had records of when the door was opened, and we were the only ones to open it since the war,” he responds. Knight doesn’t say anything else, but uneasy feeling clinging to his bones follows him as Logan leads the way deeper into the Vault.  

* * *

 

 Logan had known that the Vault would be dark once they got past the ground floor, but nothing prepared him for just how dark it was. Logically, he had known there would be no light filtering in, and he’d never been more thankful for the Pip-Boy around his wrist.   
  
“Stick close to me, at least until we find another light,” he whispers over his shoulder, in Knight’s direction. He can barely see the other man, only an outline against the darkness. It feels wrong to make noise, every sound echoing in the cavernous Vault. Despite being built with a similar layout, this was a far cry from the home he’d grown up in. 

After wandering around, they find they have a grasp of the layout of the floor. There’s a large, open central hub, with corridors branching off leading to tiny apartments. Each Overseer must have had their own population to oversee. 

They start in the apartments. It’s eerily familiar to Logan- if he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend he’s back in 101, in his own bedroom after lights out. But even at night, his Vault had never gotten so dark. There were always faint emergency lights running, dim lights left on in the cafeteria and kitchens. This place just felt wrong. 

Most of them are empty. There aren’t even Vault suits in the dressers, or dishes in the cabinets. It’s almost like nobody had ever lived here at all, and with the fine layer of dust over everything, it could almost be believed. But some of the beds have been turned down, and furniture knocked over, almost like the citizens of the Vault had been dragged from their beds. 

They find the first clue in the last apartment. A note, hastily scrawled, nearly illegible. Logan holds the light steady while Knight stoops down to read. 

_ A,  _

_ I don’t know what he’s done with everyone. I don’t even know if you’ll be able to read this. But if you can find the light, this is a warning. Get to another floor. Get somewhere safe. It won’t be long before he’s coming for me, and then you’ll be the only one left.  _

_ I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. We should have left sooner. If anyone can make the elevator work, it’s you.  _ _   
_ _ -C  _

The feeling of wrongness only intensifies as Knight finishes reading the letter. “What happened here?” he asks, echoing the question rattling around in Logan’s head. 

“Nothing good, from the sounds of it. Maybe there’s more information in the big room?” he suggests. He thinks he’d be better off not knowing, taking a get-in-get-out approach. But he’d always wonder if he didn’t have the answers. 

Knight takes the lead this time. 

* * *

The first thing Logan notices about the central hub is the stench. There’s something chemical-sharp mixed with the sick-sweet smell of decay. He doesn’t know what it is, but he doesn’t like it.

As they move further into the room, they can tell that it was quite clearly some sort of lab. The far wall is nothing but counters, covered in stacks of paper and lab equipment. There are a few desks pushed together to make a table in the corner, a terminal sitting on the surface, emitting a soft green glow. And then there are the cages, pressed up against the other wall, right next to the stairwell. 

Briefly, he thinks about leaving, backtracking up to the first floor. But that’s not a real possibility. 

The cages are empty, but the Vault’s left the hairs on the back of his neck raised, so he makes a beeline for the terminal. He and Knight crowd together to read the entries, starting with the oldest.    
  


* * *

_  
Log 1- _

_ These are the logs of Dr. Stanley Brown. My medical liscense had been revoked prior to the Great War, but Vault-Tec issued one for the Vault. And it isn’t as though there are any left who would dispute the matter.    
It has been four months since the Great War sent us down here, and it is astounding to see the way the inhabitants of the Floor have already adapted to the darkness. They’ve never seen the Vault in the light, and I keep the flashlight with me at all times, and yet these residents may be even more adept at navigating through the passages than I am. The implications of this are interesting. _

_ Log 2- _

__ Another month has passed. There is little to no entertainment here. Many of the residents have began spending much of their time with each other, telling oral histories. This terminal is the only one on the floor. Perhaps a new society will be born.    
But I’ve began to wonder. Perhaps there is a way to make them even more effective in the darkness.    
It would give me a better chance to find the entrance to the fifth floor. I have little interest in becoming the Overseer, but there are many more possibilities available if I do.

_ Log 3- _

_ Vault-Tec must have designed this floor with me in mind. I found lab equipment in storage, along with everything I need for experiments. And the supply should last years.  _

_ Oddly enough, I found DNA samples in storage as well. I’ll need to run some predictions and create a formal hypothesis, but I may have just found my chance to enhance the lives of those destined for the dark.  _

_ Log 4-  _

_ I’ve decided on my first subject. Esther Chase is a young woman and the picture of health. If the treatment takes, she should have no troubles adapting. She’s also more isolated from the others- I’ve noticed that she is often absent from their gatherings. If she disappears, it will be less suspicious. The treatment will be risky- perhaps the riskiest experiment I have attempted to undertake.   
_ _ But the results might be glorious. _

__ Log 5-    
It took longer than expected to work out the logistics of the treatment. Even now, there was only limited success. The treatment took, but during the change, the subject died. The nervous system was entirely overwhelmed. I’ll need to revise.    
  
Log 6-

_ The second round of treatment worked much better. The subject, a young man named Bellamy Cavis, survived for ten minutes once the change was complete. He was not aware during this time. More revisions to the formula are required.    
  
Log 7-    
With each treatment, I grow ever closer. The third treatment allowed the subject to survive for twenty minutes. Near the end, Jasper Cavis, brother to Bellamy Cavis, was awake and aware. It seemed he was in agony. The fourth treatment, given to Olivia Alcott, drove the subject insane. I was forced to kill her in self defense. Minor adjustments will need to be made, but do the subjects really need to retain full mental faculties? Perhaps I could construct cages to keep them in, and begin to train them, should they survive.    
  
Log 8-    
The fifth treatment was a success. Luke Valen has become the first successful experiment. Lacking most of the intelligence he had previously possessed, the subject is little more than an animal. I will need to devise a training program. I suspect this will take up much of my time. Once he is trained and docile, I will test his newfound abilities. Should they prove satisfactory, I will begin to transform the others.    
  
Log 9-    
It would seem these creatures are sterile. It has been a couple of years since my last entry, and there are only two residents left to transform. Regular tests indicate these creatures are still mortal. It is unlikely they will outlive me. I will try to get as close to my goal as I can. Perhaps if I become the true Overseer of the Vault, I can see about turning on some blasted lights.    
  
Log 10-    
I am so close.    
But it is ever out of reach.    
  
Log 11-    
My time here is up. At best, I have hours left to live. One of the creatures turned on me. My wounds are fatal. The bleeding won’t stop. Is that another feature of these creatures, or is this my final failure?   
_ _I will release the creatures. It will be my final experiment, although I won’t be around to record the results. Let the other Overseers have them._   
  


* * *

Logan finishes reading before Knight does. A cold stillness settles over him as he turns his head. He can barely make out the silhouette of the cages in the darkness.    


He wonders how many died here. How many residents were there, on this floor? How long did it take these creatures to die?    
  
He shivers.    
  
They find the key fragment in the Overseer’s desk. When they reach the elevator, they don’t look back, despite the eyes they can feel on the back of their necks. 

* * *

The next floor consists only of a communal room, with an office branching off of it, right next to the elevator. Chems litter the ground next to skeletons. Some of them still have syringes clutched in their hands.

They find an upturned desk, a functioning terminal still on the floor. The only entry details the chem supply.    
  
In the far corner, they find a pile of Vault suits. It almost seems as though some of the inhabitants had discarded them carelessly into a pile- there are burn marks, on the ones at the top of the tile. Maybe they’d tried to make a bonfire of some sort. Maybe there’d been evidence to burn. Despite the unknown, a wave of nostalgia rushes over Logan.    
  
“It’s been a long time since I’ve worn a Vault suit,” he says, reaching out to take one from the bottom of the pile. It is whole and undamaged, if he ignores the musty smell hanging about it and the dust that tickles the back of his throat. He can almost pretend he was back home, picking out a new suit after he’d outgrown his.    
  
“When did you wear a Vault suit?” Knight asks, curiously. It’s hard to imagine Logan as a Vault Dweller, with the ease that he walks the Mojave with. More than that, it reminds the soldier that he doesn’t know Logan. The paperwork he’d begun for a leave that would let him tag along hangs heavy in the back of his mind- he wouldn’t give this up, not really, but damn if it isn’t sobering to realize how much of an unknown the man in front of him is. It just means he wants to get to know Logan, he decides. Everything about him. 

“When I was growing up. I was...I grew up in Vault 101, out in the Capital Wasteland. Thought I was born in the Vault, but it turns out I wasn’t,” he says, still eyeing the suit. His childhood had been much simpler. He almost missed it. He tries not to think about the chaos of leaving.   
  
The wheels start turning in Knight’s head. He’d heard of a wanderer from the Capital Wasteland. Something about the Enclave, and a rogue chapter of the Brotherhood. Something about a Project, and water, and a local hero.   
  
“Wait a second. That was...that was you? The Lone Wanderer?” Knight asks, in disbelief. He’d heard stories, legends, nothing more. He realized, with a start, that some would say the same of Courier Six. Did the man have any other titles that Knight didn’t know about?   
  
“Well, I wasn’t really the  _ Lone _ Wanderer. I had friends,” Logan answers, finally tossing the Vault suit back onto the pile. That part of his life was over. There was no point lingering over it, not when there was treasure waiting for him to find it. He heads back over to the desk, nodding at Knight to help him.    
  
“Still. I can’t believe that never came up in conversation,” Knight says, hurrying after Logan and helping him heave the desk back up. The courier immediately begins to rifle through the drawers, looking for the key.    
  
“I don’t exactly advertise it. Not for any particular reason, mind, it just seems weird to go around shouting ‘hey I’m a sort of hero in the Capital Wasteland,’” he says. The drawers only turn up more chems, so he turns towards the office. He hopes he doesn’t have to look amongst the bodies. 

“That’s...a fair point. Still, that’s kind of big. How many more titles are you gonna collect?” he teases. Logan rolls his eyes as he opens the door to the office, stepping inside. There’s another desk here, another skeleton sprawled out across a couch in the corner. There’s a terminal, too, that’s been smashed, and empty syringes litter the space. The skeleton must be the Overseer, who probably used way more drugs than he should have. Definitely not a glamorous end, but better than what had happened on the floor above.

“Hopefully, I can add “treasure finder” to the list today,” Logan jokes, snatching the key where it lays on the floor, like it’d been knocked off the desk. 

“Or maybe it’ll be “gullible enough to go on wild goose chases,” Knight says, grinning, as they make their way to the elevator.    
  
“Ha, ha. Very funny,” Logan replies, voice dry. He really hopes there’s some sort of treasure waiting for them. It doesn’t even have to be a big treasure. Just something, so he can say he’s a real treasure hunter who didn’t waste his time in the creepy Vault. 

He tries to ignore how trapped he feels. 

* * *

The elevator breaks, and something in Logan does too. Years of panicked claustrophobia comes rushing back, no longer held at bay by the thought of treasure that he might never find.

This had happened, occasionally, in 101. The ceilings got too low, the walls too tight, and Logan had to breathe through the terror until the walls retreated. It had gotten worse as he had gotten bigger. 

It was stupid to go into the Vault. It’d been locked up for a reason, should have left it alone as a silent tomb for the residents. Stupid to get in the elevator, even though there hadn’t been any stairs they could find. 

Logan doesn’t realize how quick and sharp his breathing is until Knight’s hands are on either side of his face, the Pip-Boy light casting Knight in strange shadows. 

“Breathe, Logan. I can fix the elevator but I need to know you’re okay first,” he murmurs, and he stays like that, Logan clutching his arms and Knight cradling his face, until the courier can finally breathe again. 

“Sorry, it’s just-it’s the...tight spaces. I don’t like them,” Logan manages to say, tipping his head back against the wall and closing his eyes so he can’t see the way the walls loom over him. 

Knight cautiously turns his attention to the elevator panel, slipping a knife out of his pocket as a makeshift screwdriver. 

“Everyone’s afraid of something,” Knight responds. After a moment, Logan angles his wrist towards the panel, giving the soldier a little more light to see by. 

“You’d just think...God, I’m a fucking Vaultie and I panic when I step into an elevator,” he mumbles. Knight frowns- falling into that line of thinking could only make things worse. 

“And I am terribly afraid of radscorps,” Knight says, prying the panel off to expose the wires underneath. It’s standard, with loose wires and loose fuses being the problem. Knight breathes a silent sigh of relief. It’s an easy fix, even if it’ll take a few minutes. He could get it done quicker if there was more light, but Knight was just thankful he could do it. He’d have to be careful to keep from getting shocked or cutting a wire with the knife by mistake, but he’d been trained for bomb defusal. He knew how to keep his cool.   
  
“I...really?” Logan asks, sitting up just a little to look at Knight’s back. He’d never have guessed Knight would be afraid of radscorpions. 

“Yeah. But you know what? I’m just like you. You knew you were afraid of small spaces and you didn’t let it stop you. You still came into the Vault. And even if I’m scared of radscorps, I’ll follow you all over the Mojave if you let me. Hsu should approve the request in a few days,” Knight says, leaning closer to the panel. His mind is only half on the conversation, but he doesn’t think Logan would mind. The courier would probably be much happier to have the elevator moving again.   
  
“Wait, request?” Logan asks. It’s almost enough to distract him from the panic he can still feel. 

“Yeah,” Knight says, tongue between his teeth. He’s almost got it. “You asked me to come with you, back at the Outpost. I couldn’t then. The Outpost needed me. But we aren’t at that Outpost anymore. And Hsu understands, so if anyone would approve the request, it’s him,” he explains. The fuse pops back into place and Knight breathes a sigh of relief. All that’s left is the loose wire, and that should only take a second to tighten another screw. 

“Oh. That’s...good to hear,” Logan says, unable to find the right words to express the way he feels. Still panicking, because the elevator, but Knight’s confession gives him something else to focus on. Something good, that makes Logan want to keep pushing until they find the treasure and can step back into the Mojave as the local legends who found it. 

The elevator starts moving again, and Logan lets out a breath. Seconds later, they’re stepping out onto the third floor. 

If only they didn’t need a key from each floor. It would be so much easier to go straight to the bottom, to avoid whatever other horrors the Vault might hold. But Vault-Tec didn’t want to make this easy.

* * *

The next floor  _ feels  _ darker, like Logan’s Pip-Boy light doesn’t reach as far or cut through the darkness as well.  The darkness feels heavier, too, like it’s threatening to suffocate them. He finds himself drifting closer to Knight until their shoulders brush together.

This Vault was never a home. Not like Vault 101. Even if he couldn’t go back, it had been lived in for generations. Vault 4 was a tomb. 

There is no central hub on this floor. There are long, twisting corridors that branch off into apartments. There are no signs- the residents couldn’t have read them in the dark, anyway. They will have to search each room to find the Overseer’s office, and to find the key. 

The first set of apartments they find are standard. Some of them have multiple bedrooms- families, then, must have lived here. Others are nearly identical to the one Logan himself grew up in- bedroom off to the side, a living room, the same Vault-Tec furniture that Logan had grown up with. 

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he is home. He can pretend he is eleven years old again, standing in the living room after dark, when a nightmare had sent him from his bed. His father was usually at the clinic. But it was darker here than it had ever been in his Vault, and Knight was still brushing up against him. Logan is not eleven years old anymore. Logan is [insert age] and the Capital Wasteland isn’t a home any longer. 

They find the blood in the fourth apartment. It is old, two hundred years old, and smeared across the ground like someone had been dragged from their bed in the middle of the night. There’s a bloody handprint on the bedpost, like whoever it had been had grabbed at it before being pulled away. 

Logan has never been so on edge before. There are no notes, this time, nothing telling them what might have happened or who might have left the bloodstains. Had Dr. Brown’s creatures gotten loose, like the man had intended? Or had the residents turned on one another?   
  
He jumps at the sound of a distant thump, and shares an uneasy look with Knight. 

“We’ve been in here too long. Getting jumpy,” Knight says, but Logan can tell he doesn’t believe it. 

“Yeah. After the elevator, that makes sense. That’s got to be what it is. Anything else would have died two hundred years ago,” Logan agrees. 

But what was the lifespan of the creatures that Brown created? 

* * *

 

They find more blood further into the floor. The second stain they find is in one of the long corridors, smeared against the wall, like someone had gotten shot or stabbed and slid down to the floor. There are footprints surrounding this one, disappearing off down the hallway. 

The footprints are two hundred years old, give or take a few years. Logically, both of them know that nothing awaits them down the corridor except more ancient evidence. Illogically, however, neither of them want to go further down the hallway. They don’t know what’s waiting for them, but they know it’s nothing good. 

* * *

They find a knife crusted in blood next. It’s easy to tell what the stains are, even with the rust that’s creeping along the blade. The stains next to it suggest someone had pulled the knife out and tried to limp to the room further down the corridor. The handprint on the door frame and the stains on down the hall suggests that whoever it was hadn’t made it.

* * *

They find the Overseer’s office by sheer luck. They have found more blood- footprints and handprints, old puddles that dried up two hundred years ago. They’ve heard sounds, too, off and on. More thumps, distant footsteps. They try to tell themselves they’re just uneasy. The blood threw them off after the elevator, scared them when they were already scared.

The office contains a locked terminal on a desk, a chair, and nothing else. The drawers of the desk are empty, and Logan wants to scream. So close to the third key, to the treasure, and it is nowhere to be found. It has to be somewhere, but they have gone through all the other rooms, and while they had found a lot of blood they hadn’t found any bodies. There is nowhere left for the key to be. 

It is Knight who sees the button on the desk. He’d gotten down in the floor, to look in case it had been knocked underneath the desk. Instead, he finds a button. With nothing left to do, he presses it. 

“Holy shit,” Logan says, as the far wall slides back, revealing a large room. It’s not as large as the central hubs on the other floors, but it’s larger than the biggest apartment they’d seen so far. 

He waits until Knight crawls out from underneath the desk before he enters the room. He almost wishes they’d never found the button. 

Hospital beds are lined up in a row. Most of them are bloody. Several of them are occupied with skeletons in restraints. There’s a long counter against one wall, and a desk against another. A skeleton sits in the desk chair, slumped over, a pistol near the hand. It looks like a suicide. Logan isn’t eager to examine the skeletons or the bloody beds, so he and Knight make their way to the counter. 

What they find leaves Logan with a white-knuckled grip on the handle of his pistol. Tools clearly designed for torture are spread along the counter’s surface. 

Most of them are covered in blood. 

There is no key. 

He goes to the desk, next. Knight trails one step behind him. 

They find the key in the skeleton’s hand. Logan assumes this is the Overseer. Wrapped around the key is a password, and he assumes it is for the terminal in the previous room. He snatches the key and backs away. 

There is a moment, when he thinks of walking past the terminal. He does not  _ need _ to know what happened here, after all. 

But he remembers the old bloodstains, the skeleton with a gun near it’s hand and a hole in it’s head. There is a story here as much as there is a treasure. 

He unlocks the terminal. 

He doesn’t want to finish reading. 

There are fewer entries on this terminal than there had been on the doctor’s. It is a list of names and deaths. The Overseer of the third floor had experiments of his own, it would seem. Experiments to test how much pain the residents could endure, how long it was before the others began to suspect something was truly wrong, how loud the victims could scream, how much they could bleed. When he had ran out of subjects, he decided to put a bullet in his head.

By the time Logan powers the terminal down, he feels sick. The Overseer had written down every detail of what had happened to his victims. 

He is surprised there wasn’t more blood. 

He enters the elevator with Knight. They are so close to the end that Logan can practically taste it. The things he read on the third floor left him feeling strange, like he might jump out of his skin at any moment. He had no sense of time in the darkness, only the clock on his Pip-Boy that marked the minutes and hours as they passed. 

It felt like a lifetime since he’d seen the surface, and Knight doesn’t look like he feels any better. 

* * *

The elevator doors open, and the air stinks of fear. Logan shares an uneasy look with Knight as they step out of the elevator, and a loud crash sounds from down the hall. Logan whips around, the Pip-Boy held out in front of him, light streaming down the corridors.

There is nothing there. 

Every instinct is screaming at him to get back in the elevator, to return to the surface and forget about it. The fourth floor is even more claustrophobic than the third, with tight and twisting turns. A fight here might well kill them before it began. Firing their guns in tight quarters could mean trouble. 

But they are so, so close. He does not think he is capable of turning back now. Not because of stale air and stale fear and sounds in the dark. 

Nothing in here could have survived for two hundred years, anyway. 

Knight is a comforting presence at his back as they round the first corner. There are no doors that branch off here for a long while, until they reach a short stretch. On one side, there are two apartments. On the other, there are bathrooms. On the stretch of wall between the doors, a message is scrawled in old paint. After a moment, Logan pans the Pip-Boy light over the old letters. 

THEY FOUND ME. 

“Who are  _ they _ ?” Knight asks, his voice too loud in the still silence.

“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out,” Logan answers, his voice low. If he never sees another Vault after this, it will be too soon. 

They keep going. The path, at least, is linear, if twisting. 

After a half hour of slowly navigating the dark corners, they begin to hear footsteps. The footsteps stop when they do. When the two of them resume walking, the footsteps resume. Loud, heavy, and just out of rhythm. 

Another ten minutes, and the corridors are no longer so tight. There is a single, long hallway that loops around. Logan doesn’t bother counting how many times. Then, at the edges of the Pip-Boy light, they begin to see shadows. 

The shadows dart around at the edges of the light. There is nothing they see that could cause them. Was there something in the air, here, that made them see things? Or was the Vault finally getting under their skin?   
  
There are loud clangs, always on the other side of the wall, always out of sight. 

They cannot find the Overseer’s office soon enough. 

What they do find, instead, are more messages written on the walls. 

YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME. 

THE WORLD HAS ENDED. 

THEY WILL FIND US. 

THEY ALREADY HAVE.

THEY’RE AFTER ME. 

THEY WANT ME DEAD.

I WILL KILL THEM. 

THE SHADOWS HAVE EYES.

THE DARKNESS FOLLOWS ME.

I CAN HEAR THEM.

THEY WILL KILL ME. 

I AM ALREADY DEAD.

It does not bode well. 

* * *

The corridors tighten back up just before the reach the Overseer’s office. The shadows have stopped, and the thumps are further apart. Logan sees the door to the office, and brightens visibly. He shakes off some of the fear that had been clinging to him since the elevator and bounds forward.

Knight shakes his head fondly and follows after him. Logan shoves the door open and bounds into the room. 

Knight’s heart is in his throat moments later when Logan screams, surprised mixed with pain. He pulls his rifle from his shoulder and charges into the room to see one of the  _ things  _ that the doctor had made, advanced towards Logan. It has already scratched him on the stomach, claws that sunk into the flesh and threw him across the room. 

Knight hollers and the thing turns towards him, letting out a screech as it sniffs the air. He lines up his shot with shaking hands- one wrong move, and the bullet would find Logan instead. Logan uses the time Knight’s buying him to scramble further away, one hand pressed against the scratches, blood welling up between his fingers. 

Knight fires his gun, once, twice, three times. The creature finally falls with smoking holes in the head and the chest, and the gun falls from his hands as he scrambles towards Logan, fingers scrabbling for his pack. 

Logan slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, curling in on himself. The pain is almost blinding- he can only try to breathe through it, and pray that the claws didn’t go too deep. Seconds tick by, or maybe minutes, with the way the pain distorts his perception, and then Knight is crouching next to him, fingers fumbling to open his shirt. 

If Liam Knight is anything, it is a soldier. He has long since learned to turn his emotions off in times of crisis- a clear head is necessary for survival. But even with all his training, all the years where he’d shoved his feelings aside to do what needed to be done, he can’t stop the trickle of panic. 

If Logan- no. No, he couldn’t think about that, or it would be the end of both of them in this dark and terrible Vault. 

His fumbling fingers finally find a stimpak, jamming the needle into the skin right above the wound, hard enough to make Logan grunt. It’ll bruise for sure, and the single injection is not enough to knit the skin together. 

It is, however, enough to staunch the bleeding, to start the courier on the path of mending, and to make the pain receede enough for Logan to think. 

“Bandages. In my pack,” Logan says, fingers clenched into a fist. He lets the hand that had been pressed to his stomach fall to his side, leaving a bloody handprint on the ground as he pushes himself up so Knight can get to the pack strapped to his back. 

Knight finds the adrenaline fading. With the stimpack, the wound is not so terrible. He will still need to go to the infirmary when they get back to McCarran, but he will live to make it there. 

His hands shake as he pulls the ribbon of bandages out of the pack. They do not stop shaking as he wraps the bandages around Logan’s stomach, and still shake even as Knight collapses next to Logan, his head tilting back to lean against the wall. 

It is silent for several long moments. 

“God, that hurt like a bitch,” Logan says, rolling his head over to look at Knight. The soldier is silent for several long moments before he lets out an exhausted laugh. 

“You scared the shit out of me,” Knight says, faint admonishment in his voice. 

“Next time I’ll let you go into the death trap. But the key should be in the desk, in the drawer that’s locked. Know how to pick a lock?” the courier says. Knight shakes his head, a fond smile creeping onto his face. A near death experience, and Logan’s still focused on the treasure. 

Logan takes another few moments to catch his breath before he hauls himself to his feet. His movements are stiff, now, his whole middle aching. But the pain is bearable, even as he kneels down in front of the desk and fumbles with his bobby pins until it opens. 

The key is sitting inside, just like Logan had hoped. With a tired smile on his face, Logan puts the four keys together and limps over to the hidden door on the far wall. There’s only a small indention for the keys- the door was hidden well. He slips them into the slot and steps back as the wall slides away with a terrible, awful screech. 

The sound is not so scary as it would have been a few moments ago. The wall reveals a long stairway, leading down to a hallway that’s dimly lit. 

It almost makes Logan want to laugh as he begins to limp down the stairs, Knight keeping one hand on his arm.

* * *

The treasure vault is located down a long hallway, lit with the dim emergency lights Logan remembers from Vault 101. He tries not to think about it- he does not want to associate the place he grew up with this horror.

The door has the same lock that the wall did, although it is much less hidden. Logan shares a look with Knight, an unspoken question in his eyes that says,  _ together, then? _

Knight wraps his hand around Logan’s, and together they press the keys into the lock. The door slides away agonizingly slowly. 

Confetti floats down from the ceiling, a trumpet blast playing from a speaker near the ceiling. The treasure vault is brightly lit, and Logan and Knight stand there for a moment, blinking tears out of their eyes as they struggle to adjust to the light. 

Logan is the first one to take a step into the room, one arm curled around his stomach still. The place smells awful, like rotting food, and it only takes him a moment to see why. One of the shelves is full of nothing more than ancient, rotted food. Another is full of guns, and the last has bottles of purified water. There are stacks of pre-war money, useless now, and a handful of balloons that are miraculously still inflated. 

Logan doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. 

“What is it?” Knight asks, stepping into the room. Logan is silent as Knight takes in the same sight. There is a moment before he can even begin to speak, swallowing past the lump of disappointment lodged in his throat. 

“Could we use those guns, back at McCarran?” he asks. Between him and Knight, they could carry them back. It would be _something_ , at least, that would take the sting out of the crushing disappointment in Logan's chest.

Knight shrugs, reaching out and picking one up to examine it. After a moment, he speaks. “This is probably one of the worst guns I’ve ever seen. We’re undersupplied, and our stuff is leagues better than this. It’s barely worth breaking down for spare parts,” he says, apologetically.   
  
Logan lets out a strangled sound in the back of his throat. All of that, and what do they get? Bottled fucking water. 

Knight glances at Logan, a wry smile on his face. “At least we got balloons,” he says, reaching out to tug on the string of one. 

Logan closes his eyes, letting out a breath. “At least we got balloons,” he agrees, pretending he doesn’t feel like a rug has been yanked from beneath his feet. 

At least they can leave the Vault.

* * *

They had been in there for nearly an entire day. Logan had been looking forward to having the sunlight on his skin once again, but it would seem the world is robbing him of that as well.

Logan is exhausted. He can feel the pull of sleep even as he begins walking back towards McCarran. They had planned on camping out for a couple days at least, making the most of their time together, but Logan finds that he just wants to get back to Hsu and give him his report before sinking into the cot provided for him at the base. 

Knight’s protests are superficial. They are both eager to put as much distance between them and the dark depths of the Vault as they possibly can. 

Just before the Vault is entirely out of sight, Logan turns back around to glance at the old door one last time. 

He isn’t sorry to leave it behind. 

* * *

Hsu sends Logan straight to the infirmary, firmly insisting that Knight can handle any report that needs to be made. The medics, although in short supply in the Wastes, fuss around him until he is clean and his wounds tended, leaving him in one of the cots. He is free to leave whenever he likes, his wound healing nicely and no sign of venom or poison in his blood.

He is tempted to sleep here, in the infirmary. But on an active military base, someone else could always use the bed soon enough. He pushes himself to his feet and drags himself to his tent, near collapsing on the bed. 

Logan dreams. 

_ He dreams that he is nineteen again and home, in 101, with the walls closing in on him. The corridors are long and twisting. On one floor, Amata sits on a pile of discarded vault suits, a jet inhaler in her hand. She doesn’t recognize him, and then she bursts into flames, leaving nothing but . On another floor, his father stands impassively in front of an operating table. Susie Mack is prone on the surface. His father injects her with something, and her fingers lengthen into claws and leathery wings sprout from between her shoulder blades. Her scream sounds like the shriek of a bat. Logan runs, until he finds himself on another floor, where Butch chases him through the shrinking corridors with a bloodied knife. At the end of it, he finds an empty room. He steps inside and the rest of the Vault fades away, but the walls keep closing in on him. _

Logan wakes with a gasp, covered in a cold sweat. It is nearly night again, meaning he has slept almost the full day. He pushes himself up, legs dangling off the side of the cot. There’s a faint twinge in his side, but the bandages aren’t needed anymore thanks to the stimpaks. With a groan, he runs his fingers through his hair. 

He does not expect sleep to come easily to him for a long while. 

* * *

_ Knight is back in the Vault, and Logan is back on the floor. The wounds are deeper and Logan’s breath is shallow, sharp. His skin is pale in the light from the Pip-Boy, and no matter how hard Knight presses against the wounds the blood will not stop. With a shuddering breath, Logan breathes his last. Knight howls his grief to the rest of the room, and when he turns, there are dozens of the creatures filing into the room, screeches sending chills down his spine. _

Knight wakes up with his heart in his throat. It is nearly dark again, and although Knight thinks he has had enough darkness to last him for the rest of his life, he is grateful that the heat of the day is giving way to the cool chill of night.   
  
The panic does not leave, and after a moment Knight shoves his feet into his boots and drifts through the camp until he finds Logan’s tent. After a moment, he ducks inside. 

* * *

Logan looks up as Knight enters, and he reaches for him without hesitation. They crash together, Knight mindful of Logan’s injuries. The soldier thinks he might drown in the courier’s touch, one hand fisting in the loose fabric of his shirt. The other hand slips underneath the shirt, skating up his stomach to rest on his chest. Their kisses are all tongue and teeth and desperate assurances that they are here and together and  _ alive _ .

Logan’s heart thumps against Knight’s palm as the courier pulls Knight onto his lap, peppering him with frantic kisses. The Vault is far away, and they are  _ safe _ . 

Their kisses morph from something desperate to something slower and softer. Logan scoots back on the bed, pulling Knight with him. Knight doesn’t let go. He doesn’t think he will ever manage to do so again. 

They kiss until they feel like they are on solid ground again. When they pull apart to catch their breath, Knight tucks himself against Logan’s side, his head resting on his chest. They are silent for several moments, Logan’s heart beating in his ear, until he is almost asleep. 

Logan is the one who breaks the silence. “Come with me,” he says. An unspoken  _ for now, for always _ , lingers in the air. 

Knight props himself up on his elbow, a sleepy smile on his face. He reaches up to cup Logan’s cheek with his hand, and leans over to press a gentle kiss against his lips. 

“Yes,” he breathes, and he thinks Logan’s smile is the eighth wonder of the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> so here we are with the second giveaway fic! this one was tons of fun to write even if it took forever to do it (and thanks for being so patient!). logan's relationship with knight was so fun to explore, and it was really nice to be pushed out of my comfort zone as a writer. i hope i got an accurate feel for logan and did him justice, and i hope i did vault 4 justice, too. 
> 
> with all that being said, thank you to everyone else who read this. i hope you enjoyed it! feel free to leave a comment down below if you did- i do my best to respond to every comment i get and even if i don't manage to respond, i still appreciate them a lot! thanks again for reading!


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